THE  MODERN  JEW; 


His  Present  and  Future 


•,'v? 
By    ANNA   LAURKNS  DA\VES 


lifornia 
onal 


-printed  from  THE  AMERICAN  HEBREW] 


{Reprinted  from  THE  AMERICAN  HEBREW] 


THE  MODERN  JEW; 

His  Present  and  Future 


-BY — 


ANNA  LAURENS  DAWES 


NEW  YORK 

Office  of  THE  AMERICAN  HEBREW,    498-500    Third  Ave 
1884 


PHIL.    COWEN,    PRINTER, 
498-500    THIRD    AVE.,    NEW    YORK. 


SRI* 
URL 


THE  MODERN  JEW ;  HIS  PRESENT  AND  FUTURE, 


As  in  the  fifteenth  century  there  awoke  a  vast 
and  powerful  renaissance  of  learning,  so  in  the 
nineteenth  there  has  sprung  into  being  a  renais- 
sance of  patriotism.  And  as  in  that  time  the 
light  which  burst  in  upon  the  world  generated  a 
new  growth  which  still  blesses  it,  so  the  new 
vigor  which  has  come  to  the  nations  in  our 
time  will  mark  the  beginning  of  an  epoch.  A 
single  generation  has  borne  the  birth-pangs  of  a 
new  nationality  in  all  the  great  countries  under 
the  sun.  Free  Greece,  new  Italy,  America  weld- 
ed together  in  suffering,  France  re-baptized  in 
blood  and  fire,  Germany  delivered  of  a  great  em- 
pire, Russia  torn  and  agonized  by  the  birth- 
throes  of  a  new  nation,  Ireland  waking  from  a 
long  sleep  and  struggling  with  England  for  the 
right  to  be  once  more  a  people — all  these  strong 
developments  of  patriotism  have  come  in  a  single 


4 

generation,  and  all  of  them  have  sprung  from  a 
new  hope  and  fresh  belief  in  the  people;  not  from 
the  rapacity  or  revenge  of  kings.  The  historian 
of  the  future  must  mark  this  as  the  age  of  the 
people,  the  age  when  courts  and  thrones  were 
but  the  setting  of  the  scene,  while  the  people 
were  the  actors  in  the  drama,  and  the  plot  was 
a  new  recognition  of  the  powers  of  national  feel- 
ing newly  understood.  It  is  apparent  thus  that 
the  sudden,  and  in  some  aspects  inconsequent  re- 
vival of  national  feeling  among  the  Jews  is  but  a 
fresh  instance  of  the  Zeitgeist,  and  has  the  prom- 
ise and  potency  of  that  awakening  which  comes 
from  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

The  question  has  arisen  in  three  quarters, 
"What  is  to  become  of  the  Jew?"  It  interests  the 
student  of  social  life,  the  statesman  concerned 
with  the  internal  policy  and  welfare  of  nations, 
and  the  Jew  himself.  The  very  fact  that  it 
arises  in  so  many  varying  relations,  and  is  a 
necessity  of  adjustment  in  so  many  quarters  of 
the  globe,  simultaneously,  marks  both  its  import- 
ance and  the  fact  that  the  time  has  come  for  its 
consideration.  A  problem  which  all  the  world  is 
thinking  about  will  not  only  be  soon  solved,  but 
a  difficulty  which  vexes  all  the  worid  must  be 


5 

soon  got  rid  of.  Is  a  new  nation  about  to  be 
born  ?  Or  is  a  factitious  growth  sucking  out  the 
life-blood  upon  which  it  has  fed,  until  the  knife 
is  the  only  remedy  ?  Or  are  these  cries  of  pain 
among  Jews  and  Gentiles  but  the  growing  pains 
of  a  natural  development  ?  These  are  the  ques- 
tions, or  rather  these  are  the  three  forms  in  which 
the  question  presents  itself  all  over  the  civilized 
world,  it  might  almost  be  said,  to-day. 

The  Jewish  people  are  of  unusual  interest 
to  students  of  social  life.  Can  a  piece  of  ancient 
society  be  dropped  into  modern  civilization  and 
survive  ?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  can  a  people 
so  contradict  all  laws  of  heredity  as  to  give  up — 
not  the  accidents  of  habit  founded  upon  exter- 
nal condition — but  the  very  principle  of  nation- 
al growth  inbred  for  centuries  ?  Can  the  Israel- 
ite, whose  peculiar  genius  has  been  separateness, 
burst  from  that  restriction  which  has  given  him 
force,  and  still  be  a  race  ?  Or  has  his  special 
mission  in  the  evolution  of  peoples  Ceased  ? 
Has  the  time  come  for  this  race,  like  so  many 
which  have  gone  before,  to  become  but  a  fertiliz- 
ing source  from  which  new  peoples  of  mixed 
blood  and  mingled  possibilities  shall  flow  ?  Up 


to  this  time  the  Jew  has  preserved  his  distinct 
life  and  his  mission.  The  substance  of  all  com- 
plaint against  him  has  been  that  he  was  every- 
where an  alien.  And  the  mission  of  his  faith 
and  his  philosophy,  wherever  sought  for,  is  still 
the  upholding  of  monotheism  against  every  per- 
version of  the  idea  ;  of  a  personal  providential 
Deity  against  every  vague  substitute  of  force, 
or  " power  making  for  righteousness";  and  of 
the  purity  and  sanctity  of  domestic  life.  The 
nature  of  the  people  themselves  must  necessarily 
enter  into  the  answer  to  these  questions.  We 
are  not  now  concerned  with  the  need  of  such  tes- 
timony, but  with  the  fact :  does  this  people  still 
represent  this  idea,  and  by  what  probable  method 
will  they  continue  to  uphold  it  ?  This  on  the 
philosophical  side,  and  on  the  political  side  the 
present  and  future  of  a  wonderful  race,  are  what 
interests  the  world. 

We  seldom  stop  to  reflect  how  wonderful  is 
this  nation  which  we  have  so  suddenly  remem- 
bered. The  Jew  is  the  only  race  which  has 
lasted  through  all  recorded  time.  He  is  a  piece 
of  ancient  life  still  going  on  in  the  very  midst 
of  modern  environment.  This  is  the  same  race 
which  trod  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  in  the 


morning  of  the  world.  It  is  the  same  Hebrew 
nation  which  passed  out  of  the  splendid  corrup- 
tion of  the  Chaldean  capitol  into  the  simple  life 
of  the  desert.  Ancient  Egypt  has  become  lit- 
tle else  than  a  debating  place  for  savants  and 
philosophers,  and  the  brilliant  Persian  has  left 
behind  him  scarcely  a  trace  of  a  civilization 
which  antedated  Homer  :  but  the  Jew  remains. 
There  is  nought  but  broken  and  half- comprehen- 
ded relics  to  tell  the  story  of  old  Greece,  and 
the  only  lips  which  speak  Roman  words  are  the 
laws  that  were  her  legacy  to  the  nations:  but  the 
Jewish  scholar  finds  heroes  of  his  own  people 
when  Greece  was  waste  places,  and  he  reads  in 
the  books  of  his  own  law,  principles  of  human 
right  and  duty  over  the  A  B  C  of  which  modern 
scholars  are  stumbling. 

We  of  England  and  America  find  a  great  gulf 
between  us  and  them.  We  count  a  long  lineage, 
back,  and  back  again,  through  mixed  and  com- 
posite peoples  ;  and  in  the  black  shadows  of  a 
time  that  knew  neither  nations  nor  history,  we 
dream  of  possible  descents  and  probable  deriva- 
tions making  the  whole  earth  one.  But  the 
proud  Jew  was  before  this  dream  of  a  past.  He 
was  of  eld  when  all  that  we  call  ancient  was 


8 

young.  He  was  a  part  of  history  while  nations 
began,  and  waxed  old  and  died.  He  was  con- 
temporary with  the  new  life  that  arose  on  the 
ruins  which  we  still  call  ancient,  and  his  was 
a  nation  with  heroes  and  splendid  victories  when 
Rome  was  great  and  Gaul  was  conquered.  And 
his  people  were  no  part  of  the  life  around  them, 
but  a  race  that  had  a  past  and  hoped  for  a  fut- 
ure when  Germany  began  and  England  was  not 
yet.  And  still  they  hoped  against  hope,  in  that 
long-past  time  when  great  Spain  stretched  out 
her  hand  to  grasp  a  new  land;  and  to-day,  hun- 
dreds of  years  farther  on  in  the  story,  to-day  as 
always  the  Jew  remains.  All  other  peoples  have 
intermingled,  and  of  them  have  been  born  new 
races  and  differing  types.  Here  and  there  are 
islands  in  the  great  sea  of  civilization  like  China 
or  Corea,  only  just  beginning  to  take  part  in  the 
world's  life.  But  the  Jewish  people,  from  the 
vague  story  of  Cain  until  this  very  day,  have 
wandered  over  the  whole  earth.  Enterprising, 
vigorous,  sufficient  unto  themselves,  with  a  dash- 
ing and  impetuous  courage  in  the  early  time,  and 
with  a  boundless  curiosity  they  have  been  wont 
to  scatter  far  and  wide,  to  colonize,  to  initiate 
great  commercial  enterprises  ;  but  always  and 


everywhere  they  were  Jews,  a  separate  and  pecul- 
iar people.  Therefore  it  is  that  when  to-day  we 
can  count  their  past  by  thousands  of  years,  and 
find  them  always  aliens  among  all  their  varying 
neighbors,  they  become  vastly  interesting,  as  a 
factor  in  social  life,  a  piece  of  antiquity  trying  in 
vain  to  adjust  itself  to  modern  environments. 
The  parallel  would  hardly  fail  if  you  imagined 
one  of  Caesar's  legions  or  Pharaoh's  cohorts  set 
down  in  New  York  or  St.  Petersburg  and  obliged 
to  struggle  for  adaptation  and  survival. 

Where  is  he  to  day  ?  What  is  he  like  —  this 
son  of  an  older  world?  How  does  he  live  and 
what  does  he  do  ?  These  are  some  of  the  ques- 
tions that  at  once  present  themselves  as  we  con- 
template the  Jew  from  the  standpoint  of  society. 
Does  he  any  more  assimilate  than  in  the  past,  and 
what  are  his  hopes  for  the  future  ? 

There  are  now  about  7 ,000,000  Jews  in  the 
world,  which  is,  curiously  enough,  about  the  same 
number  that  were  in  Palestine  in  the  time  of 
Christ.  These  are  variously  distributed.  About 
60,000  each  in  Great  Britain,  Holland  and 
France  ;  500,000  in  Germany  ;  about  250,000  in 
America,  and  as  many  more  in  Turkey.  All 


IO 

together  make  only  a  little  more  than  1,000,000 
as  against  5,000,000  in  Russia  and  Poland. 

The  Israelite  is  particularly  healthy.  He  can 
live  in  all  climates  and  all  latitudes.  He  in- 
creases much  faster  than  Christian  races,  and  it  is 
estimated  that  the  death  rate  among  them  is  only 
89  in  every  100,000,  while  that  of  Christians  is 
143.  This  and  their  great  longevity  is  attributed 
by  themselves  to  the  strict  sanitary  regulations 
of  the  Mosaic  code,  and  the  desuetude  of  relig. 
ious  fervor  in  great  cities  is  much  deplored  as  a 
certain  loss  to  race  vitality. 

They  are  most  law- abiding  citizens.  The 
Mayor  of  New  York  testified  a  short  time  ago 
that  although  they  formed  ten  per  cent  of  the 
population  of  that  city  they  contributed  less  than 
one  per  cent  to  the  criminal  classes.  And  it 
must  be  remembered  in  this  connection  how 
large  a  proportion  of  the  Hebrews  in  that  city 
belong  to  the  cheap  trading  population.  They 
are  almost  never  in  prisons;  they  are  never 
intemperate,  and  they  are  phenomenally  chaste. 
Indeed,  for  this  last  virtue  .they  are  celebrated 
the  world  over.  Their  family  life  is  very  beau- 
tiful. Even  among  the  poorest  and  lowest  of 
them,  his  family  and  his  reHgion  make  the  whole 


II 

horizon  of  the  Israelite.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to 
realize  how  these  two  things  are  interwoven, — 
how  really  God  and  the  Jew  are  familiar  friends, 
and  all  the  incidents  of  his  daily  life,  take  on  a 
religious  aspect.  For  centuries  the  Jew  has  had 
no  country,  but  his  hearth  and  his  altar  have 
bad  double  devotion. 

He  has  the  peculiar  domestic  virtues  of  hospi- 
tality and  charity.  It  is  still  common  in  many 
communities  for  the  head  of  the  household  to 
invite  the  poor  and  the  stranger  to  his  own  fire- 
side and  table  for  the  Friday  night  feast  and  the 
Sabbath  rejoicing.  This  public  charity  is  on  a 
most  generous  scale.  Fast  institutions  and 
bountiful  associations  for  the  care  of  the  unfortu- 
nate go  hand  in  hand  with  wise  efforts  toward 
teaching  self-help,  such  as  training  schools  for 
servants,  technical  and  mechanical  schools  and 
kindergartens. 

The  alleged  peculiar  adaptation  to  trade 
among  the  Hebrews  is  said  by  those  who  know 
them  best  to  be  simply  the  result  of  the  long  per- 
secution which  forbade  them  every  other  re- 
source and  at  the  same  time  both  by  law  and 
privilege  fostered  among  them  the  business  of 
money  lending.  In  this  way  they  lost  skill  and  . 


12 

practice  at  other  arts,  and  the  score  of  trades  and 
handicrafts  mentioned  by  a  recent  German  wri- 
ter as  flourishing  in  Bible  times,  have  altogether 
disappeared.  Thus  a  talent  lying  close  to  their 
other  qualities  was  cultivated  and  transmitted, 
until  they  have  become  the  typical  money-getters 
of  the  world,  and  have  added  the  general  dislike 
of  that  craft  to  their  other  hatreds. 

It  is,  however,  claimed  that  freedom  and  social 
liberty  are  fast  bringing  back  a  variety  of  occu- 
pations, in  so  far  as  the  spirit  of  the  age,  which 
unduly  exalts  trade,  can  be  counteracted.  It  is 
a  vast  mistake  to  suppose  that  money  drops  into 
the  coffers  of  the  Jew  without  effort  or  risk.  "If 
there  be  any  genius  in  his  success,"  says  one  of 
their  great  rabbis,  "it  is  the  genius  for  patience, 
courage,  diligence,  economy  and  consecration  of 
his  earnings  to  the  comfort  and  elevation  of  his 
family.  Those  whose  fortunes  rest  on  a  solid 
basis  have  secured  it  in  the  sweat  of  their  brows, 
with  downright  hard  work,  rigid  economy,  severe 
self-denial,  and  resistance  to  the  spirit  of  wild 
speculation." 

The  Israelite  is,  above  all  things  else,  enam- 
ored of  education.  Since  the  time  of  Solomon 
the  Jew  has  been  eager  to  get  wisdom.  There 


13 

is  no  pursuit  so  attractive  to  him.  It  is  a  maxim 
of  the  Talmud  that  learning  is  better  than  law, 
and  it  is  inculcated  over  and  over  by  all  their 
rabbis  and  all  their  books  that  schools  must  be 
kept  up  and  learning  encouraged.  Their  famil- 
iar precept,  that  every  man  should  learn  a  trade, 
does  not  interfere  with  the  other  dogma  that 
every  workman  must  be  a  scholar.  Free  schools 
and  technical  schools,  kindergartens  and  uni- 
versities flourish  side  by  side  wherever  enough 
are  gathered  together  to  make  it  possible.  They 
show,  moreover,  a  peculiar  aptitude  for  letters. 
Even  in  Russia  their  scholars  far  outnumber  the 
Christian  students  in  such  universities  as  are  open  - 
ed  to  them.  "The  school-book, — not  the  bayonet," 
to  quote  the  brilliant  Jewess,  Nina  Morais,  "was 
always  thre  weapon  of  the  Jew.  The  influence  of 
Jewish  learning  upon  pagan  Rome  made  Chris- 
tianity possible.  In  the  East,  famous  colleges 
of  the  Jew  illumined  the  region  of  the  Eu- 
phrates. In  the  West,  when  Moorish  culture 
attained  a  perfection  never  surpassed,  the  Jew 
rivalled  his  Semitic  brother  in  every  branch  of 
literature  and  science.  While  the  spirit  of  the 
Saxon  hovered  between  the  dark  of  barbarism's 
-starless  night  and  the  dim  dawn  of  civilization's 


14 

day,  the  Jew  basked  in  the  blaze  of  sunlight." 

A  long  list  of  names — each  one  of  which  tells 
a  story  of  achievement — will  best  state  the  argu- 
ment for  the  Jews.  This  is  the  nation  which* 
in  its  modern  era.  has  brought  forth  the  leaders 
of  every  art  in  every  land.  Here  are  such 
scholars  as  Emanuel  Deutsch,  and  Franz  De- 
litzsch,  Ewald,  Herzfeld,  and  Neander  ;  such 
masters  of  language  as  Oppert,  and  Bernays,  and 
Benfey  ;  such  students  as  Traube  in  medicine,  or 
Ricardo  in  political  economy  ;  such  philosophers 
as  Moses  Mendelssohn,  and  Spinoza. 

This  is  the  nation  which  has  produced  such 
women  as  Rahel  von  Ense,  and  Henrietta  Herz, 
and  Fanny  Schlegel ;  such  actors  as  Rachel  and 
Bernhardt.  and  Braham,  and  Grisi ;  such  authors 
as  Auerbach  and  Heine  ;  such  musical  geniuses 
as  Joachim  and  Rubenstein,  Offenbach  and 
Meyerbeer,  and  Moscheles,  and  Mendelssohn. 
This  is  the  people  which  counts  as  children  the 
Rothschilds,  and  Sir  Geo.  Jessel,  and  Judah  P. 
Benjamin.  In  statescraft  the  Jew  has  done  most 
of  all.  The  time  is  but  just  gone  by  when  the 
leader  of  the  liberal  party  in  Germany  was  a 
Jew,  the  leader  of  the  Republican  party  in  France 
was  a  Jew,  and  the  prime  minister  of  England 


15 

was  a  Jew  !  And  over  against  the  names  of 
Jules  Simon,  of  Fould,  and  Cremieux,  and  Gam- 
betta,  of  Lasker,  and  of  Disraeli,  are  the  no 
less  distinguished  but  erratic  leaders  of  social- 
ism, Karl  Marx,  Ferdinand  Lasalle  and  Johann 
Jacoby. 

I  have  by  no  means  exhausted  the  list  and  I 
have  not  mentioned  one  of  many  great  names 
whose  public  is  confined  to  their  own  people  and 
of  whose  just  fame  the  Gentile  world  is  deplora- 
bly ignorant.  What  I  have  said,  however,  finds 
its  confirmation  in  the  complaint  which  comes  up 
from  Germany  and  which  is  soberly  pronounced 
as  a  sufficient  reason  for  any  injustice.  "The 
German  Jew,"  says  Cherbuliez  in  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes,  commenting  on  this  feeling,  "as 
soon  as  emancipated  became  a  power,  to  the 
huge  displeasure  of  a  great  many  persons.  They 
form  an  insignificant  minority  in  Germany,  and 
yet  they  already  preponderate  in  the  municipal 
councils  of  the  largest  cities  of  Prussia.  They 
have  taken  possession  of  journalism.  The  place 
they  occupy  in  the  universities,  at  the  bar,  in  all 
the  liberal  professions  is  entirely  disproportioned 
to  their  numbers." 

A  bitter  opponent  of  this  hated  race  complain- 


i6 

ed,  not  long  ago,  that  the  mayor  of  Berlin,  the 
president  of  the  German  parliament,  two-thirds 
of  the  lawyers,  and  all  the  leading  shop-keepers 
and  financiers  of  the  city  of  Berlin  were  Jews  ! 
There  is  some  justice  apparently  in  Theophras- 
tus  Such's  quotation, — "The  Jews  have  a  dan- 
gerous tendency  to  get  the  uppermost  places,  not 
only  in  commerce  but  in  political  life.  A 
people  with  Oriental  sunlight  in  their  blood,  yet 
capable  of  being  everywhere  acclimatized,  they 
have  a  force  and  toughness  which  enables  them 
to  carry  off  the  best  prizes." 

The  Jew  is  brilliant  and  versatile.  He  is  eager 
for  liberty  and  conservative  of  advantage  gained: 
he  is  bound  to  his  people  by  ties  that  never 
weaken,  though  much  enduring  ;  he  is  never  de- 
stroyed but  rather  the  stronger  for  the  blows 
that  fall  upon  him.  Emotional,  springing  quick- 
ly to  intuitions,  patiently,  persistently  industrious, 
of  an  exceptional  purity  in  his  personal  and  fam- 
ily relations,  affectionate  and  domestic,  and  the 
very  guardian  of  religion, — it  has  seemed  to  me 
that  the  Jew  represents  the  feminine  element 
in  the  world. 

A  first  step  in  understanding  the  race  is  to 
"cease  the  abominable  injustice  of  holding  the 


I? 

class  responsible  for  the  sin  of  the  individual," 
but  it  is  equally  unjust  to  judge  the  class  by  the 
individual.  It  is  at  least  premature  judgment 
of  a  nation  to  measure  it  by  the  achievements 
of  its  geniuses,  and  it  is  never  possible  to  judge 
a  widely  scattered  people  by  any  national  stan- 
dard. The  Jews  of  different  nations  differ  as 
much  as  their  geographical  centres.  It  has  been 
cleverly  said  that  the  Hebrew  emphasizes  the 
characteristics  of  whatever  people  he  dwells 
among.  Perhaps  it  would  be  wise  to  remember 
this  in  considering  the  peculiarities  of  the  Poland 
Jew  who  is  a  Russian  peasant,  and  the  Prussian 
Jew  who  is  a  German  trader.  There  is  a  con- 
stant tendency  to  confound  the  race  character- 
istic with  the  prominent  traits  of  certain  aggres- 
sive classes,  but  it  is  only  necessary  to  remember 
that  no  people  is  to  be  judged  entirely  by  any 
one  type.  Frenchmen  are  not  all  cooks  and  dan- 
cing masters,  nor  are  all  Americans  willing  to  be 
judged  by  the  typical  Yankee.  But  certain 
local  characteristics  have  divided  the  Jews  into 
classes  which  are  well  described  by  the  local 
name,  if  only  we  will  remember  that  these  are  not 
racial  distinctions. 

The  Polish  Jew  is  the  pariah  of  his  race.     He 


i8 

is  a  peasant  in  his  habits,  and  (as  I  have  said)  a 
Russian  peasant  at  that,  ignorant,  dirty,  and  obsti- 
nate, wedded  to  his  customs,  and,  as  an  emigrant, 
without  much  adaptability  or  any  comprehension 
of  the  new  conditions  of  a  new  world.  He  has 
a  native  shrewdness,  much  facility  at  trade  and 
a  long  training  in  the  peculiar  abilities  born  of 
oppression.  It  is  not  strange  that  he  does  not 
prove  an  altogether  charming  or  desirable  citizen 
in  the  first  generation.  Moreover,  his  constant 
association  with  his  own  race,  and  the  enforced 
restriction  to  them  has  combined  with  his  pecul- 
iar religious  tenets  and  his  habit  of  mind,  to 
make  him  the  most  narrow  of  bigots.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  he  and  his  3,000,000  com- 
patriots, wherever  you  find  them,  here  or  at 
home,  are  orthodox,  and  still  follow  both  Mosaic 
ritual  and  Talmudic  law.  He  is  the  Chatham 
street  old  clo'  man,  the  glazier,  and  the  pawn- 
broker. But  we  have  the  authority  of  one  of 
their  famous  men,  Rabbi  Gustav  Gottheil,  that 
coming  here  as  he  does  with  no  education,  as 
we  understand  the  word,  often  without  a  handi- 
craft and  always  with  a  family,  hampered  by  his 
scrupulous  attention  to  strict  religious  ceremo- 
nial, without  money  or  friends,  he  still  manages 


19 

to  live  and  that  in  a  decent  and  orderly  manner, 
never  yielding  to  drunkenness,  or  sinking  into 
pauperism,  and  never  losing  his  domestic  virtues. 
"That  the  despised  Polish  Jew  is  no  burden  to 
the  community,"  says  Dr.  Gottheil,  "is  due  to  the 
sterling  qualities  he  possesses,  to  the  thoroughly 
practical  and  domestic  character  of  his  religion, 
and  to  the  sympathy  he  finds  here  as  everywhere 
at  the  hands  of  his  brethren."  It  was  this  class 
of  Hebrews  and  their  countrymen  who  suffered 
so  dreadfully  in  the  Russian  massacres.  It  is 
not  necessary  now  to  recount  the  bloody  story, — 
how  fire  and  destruction,  pillage  and  murder 
raged  hand  in  hand  over  whole  tracts  of  country, 
destroying  nearly  two  hundred  villages  and  $80,- 
000,000  of  property  (these  are  the  figures  of  the 
London  Times],  and  exciting  the  protest  of  the 
world  against  the  horrid  butchery.  The  thou- 
sands of  immigrants  who  thronged  our  shores, 
belonged,  for  the  most  part,  to  this  class,  but 
there  was  among  them  such  a  proportion  of  edu- 
cated men  and  delicate  women  as  to  make  good 
the  claim  that  nowhere  is  the  peasant  the  sole 
representative  of  his  people. 

What  is  known  as  the   Anti-Semitic  agitation 


2O 

began  in  Germany  nearly  a  dozen  years  ago. 
The  Jew  in  that  country  is  said  to  be  the  most 
intellectual  race  in  Europe,  but  that  variety  of 
Hebrew  long  known  to  us  as  "the  German  Jew" 
is  of  a  different  class.  He  has  the  intelligence, 
the  quick  wits,  the  knowledge  of  men,  the  half- 
education,  and  the  little  breeding  of  the  small 
trader.  He  adds  to  this  the  shrewdness  of  his 
nation,  and  the  self-assertion  which  has  grown 
out  of  the  long  certainty  that  he  is  despised. 
When  such  a  man  becomes  very  rich  in  a  country 
where  riches  are  made  into  a  golden  calf  and 
worshiped  as  in  America,  or  in  a  country  where 
riches  are  a  new  and  much  envied  possession  as 
in  Germany,  he  naturally  assumes  the  manners  of 
the  peacock,  and  receives  the  usual  dislike  of  that 
bird  among  his  fellows.  We  are  apt  to  forget, 
under  the  combined  irritation  of  a  vexatious  ill- 
breeding  and  an  inward  feeling  of  injustice  that 
the  money  is  not  ours, — under  these  circum- 
stances, I  say,  we  are  apt  to  forget  the  purity, 
the  domestic  virtues,  the  high  commercial  stand- 
ing, even  the  brilliant  intellectual  possibilities  of 
the  race,  and  charge  to  the  Hebrew  nation  our 
discomfort  and  discomfiture  ! 

In  Germany  something  like  this  resulted  from 


21 

the  inflated  values  and  extravagant  assumption 
which  followed  the  conquest  of  France.  The 
tremendous  opportunity  for  trade  and  specula- 
tion drew  a  large  Hebrew  population  to  their 
cities.  The  intellectual  activity  of  which  I  have 
spoken  at  such  length,  exhibited  itself  in  the 
speedy  occupation  of  so  many  political  offices, 
editorial  chairs,  and  public  places  in  general.  In 
vain  the  old  scholar  caste,  to  whom  all  these 
things  had  previously  fallen  of  right,  protested. 
It  was  but  a  little  more  than  twenty  years  since 
the  Jew  was  emancipated,  but  nothing  was  safe 
from  his  eager  brain  or  fierce  hand.  A  German 
writer  has  described  the  feeling  of  his  country- 
men in  these  bitter  words  :  '-The  ability,  perse- 
verance, thrift  and  industry  of  the  Jew  are  so 
many  points  of  sympathy  between  himself  and 
the  German,  since  they  are  the  virtues  of  all 
Teutonia  ;  but  greed,  unscrupulousness,  vulgar 
cunning,  underbred  arrogance  and  ostentation, 
purse  pride  and  an  indifference  to  the  means  so 
the  end  is  achieved,  together  with  a  cruel  cal- 
lousness to  the  sufferings  by  which  they  grow 
rich, — these  are  the  characteristics  which  have 
aroused  the  hatred  of  the  Hebrew  in  the  German 
heart." 


22 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  financial  envy,  jealousy, 
and  that  unaccountable  but  ineradicable  sentiment 
of  race  dislike  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  difficulty, 
in  Germany  as  it  is  in  Russia,  the  Russians  them- 
selves being  taken  as  authority.  But  these  are 
sentiments  not  easily  quelled.  There  is  every 
probability,  that  excellent  citizen  as  he  might  be 
in  his  own  land  among  his  own  people,  the  Jew 
is  not  likely  at  present  to  be  an  acceptable  citi- 
zen in  foreign  countries  ;  and  there  is  no  guaran* 
ty  but  on  the  contrary,  much  probability,  that 
the  slumbering  persecution,  both  social  and 
physical,  will  break  out  again  with  new  force. 
Indeed  the  former  variety  has  just  now  appeared 
in  a  new  quarter.  An  anti-Semitic  agitation, 
with  its  usual  accompaniment  of  riots,  has  but  late- 
ly broken  out  in  England,  because,  forsooth,  there 
was  much  public  rejoicing  over  the  icoth  birth- 
day of  Sir  Moses  Montefiore,  a  philanthropist  of 
such  world-wide  renown  and  such  generous 
fame  that  all  nations  covet  the  honor  of  his  birth! 

And  here  I  must  interrupt  my  sketch  of  the 
local  development  of  the  Hebrew  race,  to  defin- 
itely recall  the  element  in  its  environment  which 
is  responsible  for  many  of  their  peculiarities  and 


23 

much  of  their  difficulty.  In  circumstances  and 
characteristics  alike,  they  are  largely  the  children 
of  persecution.  I  scarcely  need  to  remind  you 
of  the  unvarying  and  unexampled  severity  of 
treatment  which  has  produced  the  modern  Jew, 
but  in  any  study  of  his  character  and  his  future, 
it  must  be  noticed  that  the  same  spirit  rages  to- 
day, only  changed  in  form,  and  even  in  that  re- 
spect very  little,  sometimes. 

For  eight  hundred  years  priestly  direction  and 
the  laws  of  the  land  united,  in  every  country 
called  civilized  in  the  world,  to  forbid  the  He- 
brew to  buy  or  hold  land,  to  engage  in  any  trade 
or  become  any  kind  of  mechanic,  to  study  any 
profession,  to  attend  any  school  or  university. 
Men  were  fined  for  employing  them, — to  teach 
them  was  punishable  by  death.  They  were  fined 
for  the  privilege  of  living  in  towns,  their  lives 
were  not  safe  in  the  highway.  Such  teachers  as 
Luther  publicly  advised  the  burning  of  their 
houses  and  synagogues.  These  were  only  a  few 
of  the  restrictions  and  indignities  heaped  upon 
them.  Even  in  England  they  could  not  hold 
land  until  1846  ;  while  in  France  their  disabilities 
were  only  removed  by  the  first  Napoleon,  and  in 
Germany  a  little  later.  And  but  a  year  or  two 


24 

ago  a  royal  commission  in  Russia  actually  rec- 
ommended officially  to  the  Czar  the  enforcement 
of  every  one  of  these  prohibitions  except  the 
overt  acts  of  murder  and  violence — which  it 
shortly  appeared  it  was  unnecessary  to  recom- 
mend or  suggest !  It  is  somewhat  surprising  to 
learn  that  in  the  State  of  New  Hampshire  no 
Jew  could  be  Governor  or  member  of  the  Legis- 
lature until  five  years  ago!  It  is  within  our 
own  memories  that  the  Jew  has  come  into  the 
privilege  of  life  and  liberty  in  any  civilized 
country,  and  yet  there  is  already  a  strong  move- 
ment to  take  it  away  from  him.  In  Russia  the 
effort  was  both  legal  and  practical.  In  Ger- 
many it  naturally  took  a  more  civilized  form, 
and  was  controlled  by  the  prominence  of  the 
German  element  in  politics,  but  the  feeling  was 
no  less  virulent.  In  England  it  is  already  a 
cloud  as  big  as  a  man's  hand. 

In  the  United  States  the  matter  assumes  a 
somewhat  different  aspect.  Under  our  free  in- 
stitutions, and  what  is  more  effective  perhaps,  in 
the  free  atmosphere  of  our  body  politic,  the  Jew 
has  greatly  changed  his  character,  and  the  very 
spots  of  the  leopard  have  faded.  The  number  of 
Hebrews  among  us  is  less  than  300,000,  of  whiqh 


25 

about  one  fourth  are  in  the  city  of  New  York. 
They  support  one  hundred  and  thirty  eight  con- 
gregations, holding  in  their  corporate  capacity 
nearly  $7,000,000  property.  Their  princely 
charities  abound  in  all  our  large  cities,  and,  ac- 
cording to  their  custom,  are  for  the  most  part 
open  to  all  creeds.  Their  educational  institutions 
are  of  every  kind. 

Until  very  lately  our  Jewish  population  has 
been  mostly  German  in  its  origin,  with  some 
sprinkling  of  other  nationalities,  much  of  the 
Polish  element  and  a  strong  vital  infusion  of  the 
Portuguese  Jews.  This  branch  of  the  race, 
always  its  aristocracy,  is  the  head  of  gold,  though 
the  feet  are  Polish  clay  and  the  hands  of  German 
silver  !  The  Portuguese  Jews — some  of  them 
descended  from  families  settled  in  Newport  or 
elsewhere  before  the  Revolution, — have  given 
tone  to  American  ideas  of  the  race,  and  helped 
to  make  impossible,  until  a  very  late  date,  the 
social  persecution  of  foreign  lands.  The  race  in 
America  is  much  indebted  also  to  some  of  its 
learned  men  for  a  general  belief  in  its  good 
qualities.  One  of  them  indeed,  Dr.  Felix  Ad- 
ler,  has  drawn  a  large  Gentile  following  to  his 
broad  schemes  of  philanthropy,  and  his  Deisti- 
cal  philosophy. 


26 

But  another  cause,  fatal  to  the  Jews  as  a  race, 
has  contributed  to  their  prosperity  in  America. 
They  are  fast  giving  up  their  religion  with  its 
peculiar  rites.  Many  of  them  are  uncircumcised, 
they  are  intermarrying  and  they  have  adopted  a 
new  ritual,  omitting  what  was  temporary  in  the 
Mosaic  code.  Some  of  them  favor  the  adoption 
of  Sunday  as  the  Sabbath.  These  are  the  re- 
formed Jews,  and  they  are  of  all  stages  of  belief, 
from  those  who  have  altered  only  their  form  of 
worship,  to  those  who  have  adopted  all  these 
new  lines  of  thought,  or,  caught  in  the  whirlwind 
of  skepticism  that  has  swept  over  the  world,  have 
given  up  all  beliefs,  and  are  practically  pagans. 
This  is  the  element  —  strong  in  Germany  and 
America — which  believes  that  the  real  future  of 
their  race  is  in  breaking  down  the  separateness, 
which  has  been  their  distinctive  characteristic, 
and  in  the  assimilation  possible  under  a  free  sky. 

There  are  two  ways  of  settling  the  difficulty . 
The  way  of  assimilation,  and  the  way  of  coloniz- 
ation. The  first  implies  the  abandonment  of 
circumcision  and  many  of  their  dietary  restric- 
tions; it  endangers  the  seventh  day  Sabbath,  and 
it  encourages  intermarriage.  Against  this,  there 
are  seemingly  insuperable  obstacles  in  some 


27 

quarters.  Russia  and  Germany  alike  will  not  have 
this  alien  element  among  them,  and  so  strong  is 
the  race  hatred  that  they  will  not  to  any  appre- 
ciable extent  assimilate  the  Jew.  They  will, 
they  cry  out,  disgorge  him,  in  one  way  or  another. 
This  bargain  of  assimilation,  moreover,  is  emphat- 
ically a  bargain  which  it  takes  two  to  make;  but 
unfortunately  for  the  bargain,  neither  of  the  two 
will  agree.  The  Jew  objects  more  strongly  than 
his  neighbor.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that 
if  the  Christian  hates  the  Jew,  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  Jew  hates  the  Christian;  and  in  his 
breast,  race  and  religion  combine  to  refuse  any 
such  unholy  alliance.  The  5,000,000  Russian 
Jews  are  almost  without  exception,  strictly,  bit- 
terly orthodox.  They  cannot  abide  the  idea  of 
any  project  or  manner  of  life  which  would  tend 
by  surrounding  or  through  temptation  to  weaken 
their  race  bond.  They  see  with  horror  the  in- 
fluence of  trade  and  freedom  in  France,  in 
Germany,  and  worst  of  all  in  America,  to  weaken 
the  bonds  of  faith  and  break  up  their  separateness 
as  a  people.  They  believe  with  a  vigor  that  has 
grown  by  persecution  and  fed  upon  martyrdom, 
that  the  Jews  were  meant  to  be  always  a  peculiar 
people,  teaching  the  world  their  sublime  idea, 


28 

not  by  mingling  with  it,  but  by  standing  above  it. 
It  is  impossible  they  say,  to  be  a  Jew  in  heart, 
and  yet  mingle  blood  and  life  with  other  peoples. 
Strongly,  devoutly,  overwhelmingly  religious, 
their  religion  has  become  their  sole  treasure,  and 
clinging  still  to  the  hope  of  a  Messianic  kingdom, 
it  is  set  in  their  heavens  like  a  bright  star  of 
promise. 

.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that  this  religion  consists 
in  daily,  hourly  performance  of  rites  which  com- 
pel their  dwelling  in  communities  by  themselves, 
since  bread  and  meat,  house  and  church,  birth 
and  death  depend  upon  a  surrounding  of  their 
own  people — and  it  seems  evident  that  unless  the 
whole  vast  population  could  be  changed  by  a 
miracle  they  must  still  live  together,  A  similar 
feeling  prevails  among  all  Jewish  communities, 
outside  of  Russia.  Indeed  what  is  called  the 
reform  element,  though  growing  fast,  is  still  very 
insignificant  in  proportion.  In  New  York,  for 
instance,  one  of  its  great  strongholds,  out  of  the 
fifteen  thousand  heads  of  families,  only  one 
thousand  belong  to  the  reform  congregations. 
Wherever  the  Jew  is  still  strongly  orthodox,  he 
sympathizes  with  the  desire  for  separateness,  and 
he  rigidly  practices  its  precepts.  This  is  indeed 


29 

one  great  reason  why  all  nations  are  so  eager  to 
spew  them  out.  The  Jew  himself  insists  upon 
remaining  a  foreign  element  in  every  community, 
and  an  indigestible  substance  must  be  removed. 
This  rigid  determination  to  be  always  a  Jew, 
requiring  movement  and  action  in  the  mass,  and 
the  bitter  demand  of  so  many  rulers  and  people 
in  so  many  lands,  that  he  shall  be  no  longer 
part  or  parcel  of  their  population,  seems  to  make 
wholesale  colonization  the  only  remedy — unless 
you  would  contemplate  extermination  or  a  war 
for  the  supremacy  to  which  the  Jew  believes  him- 
self entitled ! 

A  large  division  of  the  race,  however,  protest 
bitterly  against  any  general  scheme  of  coloniza- 
tion, which  shall  compel  their  adherence  even 
by  implication.  These  are  the  rich  Jews,  the  in- 
fluential officials  and  great  bankers  of  Germany, 
the  statesmen  of  France,  the  prosperous  English 
and  American  Jews.  With  them  is  the  large 
class  who  hope  for  a  similar  success  and  think 
they  see  an  open  way  thither.  Their  God  is 
success,  their  religion  is  effort,  their  ritual,  adap- 
tation to  their  surroundings.  None  of  this  class 
care  for  sentiment,  or  wish  to  further  an  unpro- 
ductive patriotism.  And  there  join  in  the  feel- 


3° 

ing  of  protest  if  not  in  the  cry,  all  those  Jews 
who,  wearying  of  unfulfilled  hope  and  inex- 
plicable prophecy,  have  made  for  themselves  a 
new  religion,  seek  a  new  life  in  the  people  where 
they  dwell,  and  look  for  a  great  future  by  assimi- 
lation— as  the  Saxon  is  still  great  in  his  English 
descendants.  The  practical  difficulty  is  also  urged 
against  this  idea  of  colonization,  that  the  Hebrew 
of  every  country  hates  his  brethren  of  every  other 
country  so  vigorously,  that  no  common  home  is 
possible. 

Meanwhile  in  the  face  of  this  effort  and  this 
philanthropy,  or  rather  contemporaneously  with 
it,  arose  both  its  opportunity  and  a  motive 
strong  enough  to  fuse,  in  some  measure,  all  its 
conflicting  elements.  Palestine,  the  hope  of  the 
orthodox  Jew,  and  the  sacred  memory  of  every 
Hebrew,  was  suddenly  thrown  into  the  eye  of  the 
world.  A  great  and  complicated  Eastern  ques- 
tion had  been  precipitated  upon  Europe,  and 
this  little  vacuum  in  the  midst  of  her  entangled 
alliances  was  abhorred.  Its  strategic  advantages 
became  as  apparent  to  England  as  to  Cyrus  of 
old,  and  even  Turkey  woke  up,  before  the  mat- 
ter was  done,  to  Palestinian  possibilities  never 


seen  before.  It  became  evident  all  at  once  to  a 
great  many  powers,  that  if  England  would  keep 
her  endangered  position  in  India,  her  hardly 
established  Egyptian  rule,  and  her  Eastern 
supremacy  in  general,  she  must  have  some  other 
base  of  operations  than  Cyprus,  and  especially 
some  other  highway  from  West  to  East  than  the 
Suez  Canal.  What  so  simple  as  the  possession  of 
Palestine  ?  And  the  fact  that  in  one  way  or 
another  she  still  feels  that  this  must  be  ac- 
complished, is  seen  by  her  tremendous  and 
futile  scheme  to  make  the  Jordan  valley  itself  a 
canal,  thus  wiping  out  Palestine  altogether,  her 
more  practicable  plans  for  trans- Syrian  railways, 
and  her  sudden  but  constant  interest  in  the  agri- 
cultural and  commercial  possibilities  of  this 
hitherto  neglected  land.  Would  the  nations  of 
the  earth  agree  to  English  settlement  of  Palestine  ? 
Hardly,  it  would  seem. 

And  here  it  was  that  diplomacy,  philan- 
thropy and  patriotism  united  in  the  scheme 
of  Jewish  colonization.  Its  inception  and 
practical  working-out  were  largely  due  to  Mr. 
Lawrence  Oliphant.  His  brilliant  diplomatic 
ability,  trained  in  Eastern  schools,  and  his 
cosmopolitan  experience,  gave  weight  to  his 


opinions.  A  journey  to  Palestine  convinced 
him  of  their  practicability,  and  he  has  persuaded 
his  audience  of  the  considerable  possibilities  of 
that  country,  in  many  directions.  He  showed 
the  great  promise  of  its  soil,  and  the  rich  com- 
mercial regions  tapped  by  its  seaports,  answering 
the  common  objection  that  Jews  do  not  love  ag- 
riculture by  the  practical  suggestion  that  Pales- 
tine  and  its  wider  boundary  of  Syria  does  not 
need  to  be  agricultural  only.  The  hard  argu- 
gument  of  money  was  brought  to  bear  in  the 
cheapness  of  transportation,  and  the  possible 
simplicity  of  life.  We  were  reminded  that 
here  the  race,  though  long  expatriated,  was 
still  native  to  the  soil  and  climate.  Sentiment 
would  induce  all  nations  to  favor  a  Hebrew  state 
in  the  Holy  Land,  while  as  a  neutral  power  with 
affiliations  in  every  country,  the  balance  of  na- 
tions would  be  advantaged,  not  overturned. 
Strict  religious  belief  would  hail  it  as  the  res- 
toration seen  by  the  prophets.  Disgusted  and 
over- Hebraized  communities  would  eagerly  wel- 
come the  relief  afforded.  The  English  protec- 
tion would  make  it  possible  even  under  the  un- 
certain rule  of  Turkey.  It  was  to  philanthropy 
a  welcome  solution  of  the  difficult  problem  of 


33 

help  for  so  persecuted  a  people  who  were  yet  so 
difficult  to  relieve.  No  less  than  forty  societies 
were  formed  in  different  parts  of  Europe  to  fur- 
ther the  matter,  and  nearly  $10,000,000  were 
contributed  for  the  purpose. 

Simultaneously  with  this  great  movement  from 
the  outside,furnishing  the  opportunity,there  arose 
a  national  movement  among  the  Jews  themselves, 
furnishing  the  common  motive  to  their  divided 
bands.  The  great  wave  of  patriotism  in  the  social 
atmosphere  reached  this  nation  also.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  tell  whether  George  Eliot  was  the  prophet 
whose  words  wakened  the  slumbering  fire  of  pa- 
triotism, or  only  the  poet  who  gave  expression  to 
what  was  already  in  the  hearts  of  Deronda's 
countrymen,  but  she  did  much  to  foster  it.  While 
the  unhappy,  crowded  out  Jew  of  Eastern  Eu- 
rope was  seeking  in  Palestine  a  new  home  where 
his  religion  and  his  separateness  would  give  him 
half  the  battle,  instead  of  handicapping  him,  the 
brilliant,  cosmopolitan  Jew,  who  believes  in 
growth  and  progress,  suddenly  discovered  that 
he  was  without  a  country.  He  discovered  that 
he  who  had  given  up  being  a  "  sect,"  was  scarcely 
a  "race, "since he  had  no  land  he  could  call  his 
own.  The  appeal  of  his  countrymen  sounded  in 
his  ears.  The  desperate  cry  of  denationalized  Ire- 


34 

land  and  the  proud  triumph  of  new  France  were 
to  him  a  great  reproach.  Was  he  only  to  be  the 
people  whose  very  name  was  but  empty  words  ? 
Was  he  to  wander  forever  up  and  down  the.  lands 
seeking  a  place  to  lay  his  head,  and  find  the 
broad  earth  nowhere  holding  out  welcoming 
hands  to  him?  Had  his  children  no  future,  but 
to  buy  and  sell  and  get  gain  ?  Was  there  no- 
thing the  wide  world  over  that  should  any  more 
awake  a  thrill  in  his  heart,  but  the  sad  memories 
of  despair?  Were  all  peoples  to  profit  by  his 
presence,  to  move  at  the  command  of  his  brain, 
and  yet  all  the  glory  of  the  world  to  be  ever- 
more to  him  but  Dead-Sea  apples,  since  there 
was  nowhere  any  country  at  whose  feet  he  might 
proudly  lay  the  tribute — he,  the  nation  with  a 
history  and  a  mission  ! 

There  awoke  what  George  Eliot  well  describes 
as  the  organized  memory  of  a  national  conscious- 
ness, asking  "for  the  restoration  of  a  Jewish  state 
planted  on  the  old  ground,  as  a  centre  of  nation- 
al feeling,a  source  of  dignifying  protection,  a  spe- 
cial channel  for  special  energies  which  may  con- 
tribute some  added  form  of  national  genius  and 
an  added  voice  in  the  councils  of  the  world." 
A  Jewish  state,  a  free  Jewish  state,  means  in- 
ternal reform  based  on  higher  education,  now  im- 


35 

possible  except  under  Christian  or  apostate  con- 
ditions. A  Jewish  state  in  Palestine,  means  such 
a  renationalization  under  such  conditions  as  will 
neither  interfere  with  the  Sabbath,  or  their  sump- 
tuary laws — certain  obstructions  in  the  way  of  any 
successful  settlement,  in  the  United  States  for  in- 
stance, except  at  the  dangerous  sacrifice  of  reli- 
gious belief.  That  most  able  Jewess,  Emma  Laz- 
arus, quotes  with  great  effect  the  pregnant  saying 
of  a  young  Russian  refugee,  that  the  mission  of 
the  Hebrew  to  uphold  the  moral  idea  is  not  yet 
gone — but  that  he  needs  the  force  and  centre  of 
action  furnished  by  a  national  life,  to  give  effect  to 
his  work.  This  indeed  seems  to  be  a  growing 
feeling  among  Jews  of  all  classes,  the  common 
point  where  the  widely  separated  and  variously 
circumstanced  Hebrews  unite.  A  new  nation, 
repatriation.  For  a  great  people  whom  necessity 
drives  thither,  or  religion  draws,  a  permanent 
home.  For  the  citizen  of  the  world,  successful 
and  prosperous  in  his  well- beloved  adopted  land, 
a  national  centre  whence  he  draws  courage  and 
dignity,  place  and  a  new  power  among  the  peo- 
ples of  the  earth. 

And  where  the  wide  world  over,  so  favorable  a 
spot  as  Palestine  for  a  Jewish  nation?  Palestine 
which  must  and  will  be  speedily  settled  once 


36 

more  by  some  one,  but  which  is  to  every  Jew  (be 
his  religion  what  it  will,)  as  truly  motherland  as 
Switzerland  to  the  exiled  Swiss,  or  Great  Britain 
to  the  wandering  Englishman  !  The  objections 
are  innumerable,  and  the  difficulties  tremendous, 
but  the  first  sink  away  before  a  great  patriot- 
ism, the  latter  are  trifles  to  a  great  necessity- 
At  present  all  things  sleep.  The  Sultan,  fear- 
ful of  the  consequences  to  his  kingdom  and  his 
shrines,  has  forbidden  Jewish  immigration  to  his 
dominions,  and  the  Eastern  question  itself  is 
lying  couchant.  But  the  quiet  is  not  a  perma- 
nent one,  and  we  are  likely  to  see  the  matter 
break  out  again  in  any  one  of  many  forms  which 
would  make  the  present  possibility  not  only  a 
probability,  but  an  opportunity. 

The  Jewish  question,  it  appears,  does  not  yet 
resolve  itself.  The  world  is  hardly  nearer  the 
solution  than  at  first.  The  historical  student 
still  enquires  unanswered,  if  an  alien  people  can 
survive  amidst  hostile  surroundings,  or  if  a  na- 
tion can  give  up  its  peculiar  hereditary  charac- 
teristics and  yet  remain.  And  the  philosophical 
enquirer  still  asks  the  old  skeptical  question,  "can 
a  nation  enter  into  the  womb  of  history  and  be 
born  when  it  is  old  ?" 


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